Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback skill check dice rolls, a really shit idea (turned savescumming into a core game mechanic)

That is another critical point. In D&D you always know that "phew, ok...gonna go talk to that druid. Can someone cast guidance on me? Druid player, can I get enhance ability on Charisma? Oh, I cast disguise self on me to make myself look like a wood-elf. Here goes nothing!"

NOW you can mess with rolls being important. Players know, will prep, will get info, use spells, all of that before going in and talking to an important NPC. If I narrated them walking into a tense situation with the King of All Lands and God and Satan and they saw it from 100 feet and cut them off as they began to whisper plans on what to do and said "So, you continue walking the 100 feet up to them. They immediately notice you. What do you say". Lol, wow that is fucking them. That is exactly what they do with cut scenes over and over for this stuff.

The thing is, in this Kagha situation, you can do all that stuff. You probably have talked to the tieflings and know that Kagha has arrested their child for stealing the idol, so you have in information to prep. Cast guidance and disguise self on yourself before you open the stone door.

If you don't prep before opening the door, that's kind of on you. And at that point you're 15 feet away, and maybe your DM would still allow you to cast guidance. But most DMs would either not allow that or would roleplay the Kagha noticing the players and asking "Hey, why are you casting all those spells aimed at influencing opinions on yourself from 15 feet away from me?" (which the game can't do)

Btw I agree that the Kagha situation should have more options. An insight check to guess that the child is going to run, a dexterity check to put yourself in front of the child/kill the snake, and initial dialogue option (NOT a check) to walk between the snake and the child, similar to putting yourself between the crossbow tiefling and the caged goblin. I like the dialogue dice rolls, but there should be more degrees of failure/success and the kid shouldn't die from failure from a basically unrelated check.

Hey, there's a perfect game for ya'll: Assassin's Creed 2. I was supposed to run around and gather all these feathers, and I didn't have time for that stuff, so I didn't. When I played Brotherhood? It said I did.

As to pass/fail on difficult persuasion checks? Here's a thought, let's test out how "automatic success rolls" really works. Switch off you PC, and head to the nearest luxury car lot in your area. Link us the video where you passed the persuade check to give you their most expensive car for free. Hyperbole aside, there should absolutely be dialog skill checks, and not just "history". That's why we have dialog skills with set values that we can change accordingly. We can buff it, we can increase it through stat increases, although that will be more apparent later, as we gain levels beyond level 4. Why bother with it if we're just going to sweep it under the rug because someone may not like a fail state?

The Bottle Of Save States

Those who have a played a retro video game on an emulator will be familiar with the concept of save states. This is a feature that allows the emulator to save your progress outside the boundaries of the game.

A magic item exists in the world of Dungeons & Dragons that acts in a similar manner to the save state feature. It is the thought bottle, which debuted in the Complete Arcane.

The thought bottle is sort of like the Pensieve from Harry Potter, in that it allows the player to store their experiences inside the device.

This allows the player to store their experience points total for the cost of five-hundred experience points.

Once the player has stored their experiences inside the thought bottle, then they can spend their experience points on creating magic items and for using the effects of spells like permanency.

They can then restore all of those lost points by using the thought bottle.

people have created many "save game spells" too


but with a "story mode" the game would succeeded on each rolls

where with a "hardcore mode" the game save when you exit and that's it. but people do use alt+f4 to close the game so it does not save and you can try to roll again.

Proceeds with assumptions... This thread is stupid. I'm getting sick and tired of this type of crap, especially with that tone. Are you this much fun at the zoo too?

"This was bullshit. That aquarium was way too blue and not representative of the desires of all people that want to see a slightly less blue aquarium! I paid for this! I DEMAND YOU CHANGE IT"

It is why I made a broader point and the details that you are referencing were contextual to that. I maybe be just one DM, and not most, so I cant speak for the world, but I do have some experience in this:



When an NPC says "Kagha is waiting for you in the door" you don't blow all your spells (actual rest mechanic ) for....what exactly? talking? sneaking? saving children? for what is a meet and greet. You don't place people into important situations blind. The level of information gathering you are talking about still doesn't lead to the expectation that you cross that threshold and need to deal with her about to kill a kid. Even seeing the kid, you dont expect her to be anything more than an overprotective druid scolding a child. I am sorry, it is unreasonable to think that given the information you are given and the likelihood of piecing it together on your first time playing the game to be able to prepare for that conversation sufficiently that you can give yourself a good chance at having the outcome you wanted (not that you KNOW what the situation is!).

Guards would take you to her. They would make you wait while you watched a conversation like what happened. You MIGHT be able to say "no!". The point, like I said quite clearly, was that shouldn't have been a life or death scenario. Regardess of the guard rails you put up to keep it moving forward, the stakes are too high for what you could reasonably expect to influence having literally just walked in the door. If they want to kill the kid for narrative and Kagha building,then do so. If not, give a buffer where people can try to make sense of the scenario before having to pull the trigger.

Failure is necessary and should be permanent with lasting consequences. Save scumming is possible in every single D&D single player game that is worth speaking of. It is down to personal play style. That being said, i would love to see an option to only have a single save file for a given playthrough so that save scumming isn't possible. Divinity had this for high difficulties. Make this an inherent part of ALL save files at release. With how buggy the current game is, custom save points are a necessity though, so save the "iron man" system for release.

It's much simpler than that.

Kagha will kill the kid, unless... you save her by the means you can, and are willing to use. So if you lack the means to talk her out of it, then... You can attack her. If you're not willing, then she'll kill the kid. End of story. At least, the kid's.

To be nitpicky, guidance is a cantrip ^_^

I'll agree that you dont know that you'll be walking into such a hostile situation, but I'll argue against you that it's a simple meet and greet. The druid at the entrance were pretty hostile to you and the tieflings were incredibly upset and worried that their child was being held hostage. It's not a normal "Hi, my name is ____, good to meet you" situation.

You shouldn't be able to piece everything together before any dialogue. Especially this child thing. The child acted impulsively and Kagha/the snake reacted impulsively. You shouldn't be able to learn that the outcome of this dialogue might be child death before the dialogue even begins!

As to your last paragraph, I think we're in agreement. I think there should be an additional check (during the dialogue) related directly to the child death (stepping in the way, for example). Currently, we think the check is to "let the child go or keep the child in captivity" but actually is "keep the child alive or let her die" which is misleading. I'd be fine with the dialogue being entirely cutscene with no check.


Not true. There is no option to attack her once you realize that she is going to kill the kid. Initially, if you fail the check, you just think "Ah well, the child will stay in jail for a big longer."

You can attack her after she kills the kid, but this is obviously not the same.

Problem is that many skill checks in EA are too difficult. Get all the skill bonuses and buffs you want but often you will just keep failing because RNG is stacked against the player. Perhaps this will get adjusted in the future, after all act 1 should take it easy but I don't get the "failure is rewarding/fun" idea. One failed skill check could mean death for an entire party and then you will have to reload anyway. That is not what I consider fun or rewarding, I consider that a brick wall.

It's funny because I was just thinking that if I was too far away and was just shown this as an unfortunate cinematic then that's one thing, But my character is too close for this to be unavoidable and I don't mean saving the child per say, but simply intervening.

I also agree that spells such as Guidance and Disguise might be options (sheesh didn't even think of those), but as a Half Elf Ranger, the last thing I thought I needed in a meet and greet with Druids, was to do all that. My mistake maybe.

MrFuju3

I was talking about disguise self and enhance abilities :p

I am all for walking into difficult scenarios. We made the joke that the theme song for my campaigns should just be this constantly in the background https://youtu.be/u9VMfdG873E

I like stress. Last session there was no fighting and at one point I just was playing something out and kept asking them "Do you do anything?" they saying it was like watching a movie and the drama was just brutal, they had no idea what was going to happen to any of the parties involved, including them. They had made some decisions based on very little info and hedged their bets the best they could before saying "ok....I do it".

I want people to use notes. I want them to talk to people. They have learned that if you take things at face value, you will most likely not be making the BEST decision. It isn't always a tricksy, but there is usually something more to gain by being thorough. In low level scenarios, where there almost no tools at a player's disposal you have to rely on simple scenarios or scenarios that are broken down into a series of sufficiently simple tasks that the outcome is probably achievable. At least for things where you would know that the players would most likely wish to narratively succeed as there isn't a material, impactful reward like a Cloak of Elvenkind at stake. It is there to give them a win while letting them be creative. Its why they're here.

The Shadow Druid arc would be the one where difficulty comes in. This is something Id write 1 hour before the session if I forgot to prep as it stands.

- I go into the library
- Ok, through the bookcase you see a large wooden chest
- Can i open it?
- Inside is a letter to Kagha from "evil overlord shadow druid" that explains he left important info at X marks the spot.
- Ok, I talk to kagha and tell her I found her letter
- uhm...that isn't an option. You feel like God is telling you to go to the swamp and deal with this arc later.

Yeah you can charm her (if she fails throw), guidance, disguise self didn't really do anything - she liked me for being a drow though, commented that I understand a spider protecting her brood. It didn't really make too much of a difference, it was still an annoyingly high DC haha

Another example of where playing Drow has some cool options, where as playing Half-Elf Ranger is clearly too bog standard a choice lol

Well, it took me 7 playthroughs to get to drow haha. Im old school and are like "nah, drow are rare and have sunlight sensitivity and everyone hates them it doesnt make sense" and dont allow them in games. This game is WAY easier as one though, NO downside and everyone is scared of you and respects you.

Orbax

So would you be happy if you could talk to the druids outside and some/one of them would hint that that Kagha is prone to violence? And then that would open up a dialogue option w/Kagha where you say "Make your snake back away from the kid and then we can talk" If so, I 100% agree.

As to you example, you can only find this letter after the kid is dead, right? So it's not like you could confront Kagha and use this letter to save the kid???
But yes I also agree that once you find this suspicious letter, you should immediately be able to talk to Kagha about it. That's just common sense.

The bolded here? This is a misconception on your part. This is something that a quality DM may, in fact, have in store for their campaign. This, is why I would never want to play in a campaign you run, because it's all going to be "oh, that's fine, you won xxx automatically". I can sit home and write all of that I'd ever need to feel good about myself, or my gaming sessions. What about this event was not foreshadowed, even if not the exact situation? Did you not get the same cutscene the rest of us did upon first approaching the grove? What I didn't expect to find was a subordinate Druid disageeing with her decision to imprison the girl, a fact that makes even less sense after this encounter, when you talk to him. Again, she's not planning to kill the girl. Nothing in her dialog points to that being her intention, she even blatantly says to lock her up until the ritual, and yet, you come here and claim her intent was to kill the girl, after citing your experience as a GM? It's spoken dialog, and you still missed it?

If you know its there, you can go to the swamp and read the letter in the tree first. Even them, you have to save the kid before you get the option to confront her. You cant tell anyone else. What I did was I read the letter and freed Halsin before ever going to the grove and meeting her and i STILL couldnt tell Halsin or confront her prior to the child about shadow druid stuff. There is no way to circumvent that vignette that ive been able to think of yet. Hmm. I just thought of one. I wonder if I can cast invisibility on the kid or something....anyway, its just gon' happen.

And lets say there was a person outside that cave entrance transition. You hear, flat out, "I think Kagha means to kill that child that was caught trying to steal our sacred idol!"

You have to put yourself behind the veil. Honestly, what do you actually do at level 1 to prepare for that? You probably just walk in and see what the fuck is going on. It was only when I was level 4 and had waited that I came back to it with some new ideas and none of them worked there either. You are being set up to fail, plain and simple. If they want the narrative that bad, then just do it. There is no benefit or disbenefit to you for the child dying other than that shitty ring that you get from the parents. Maybe theyre in BG later, probably not. Since its inconsequential and youll probably fail, just play it out, its more dramatic that way.

The flaw is in the very nature of what they were trying to do and the the tools given and your odds of success against an arch druid at level 1. It was a farce beginning to end and it took the worst part of narrative and decision making and made the player care almost nothing for the outcome other than wanting a kid not dead on principle.

That is a very strong position, I am sorry you feel that way about these games I ostensibly DM that are in line with your imagination. For clarity, please actually read the posts in the thread before going too far down a rabbit hole. https://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=721868#Post721868

I think Larian should give the possibility for infinite re-roll. Why you ask ?
Here is why.

When I talked about the bad-feeling I get from the roll-dice, LOT of gamers said "just reload if you're unhappy".

So for my second game, this is what I did. I reload.
For an example, yesterday night I reloaded exactly 11 times my save just to get a positive roll-dice.

FACT IS : it was not fun and it was a lot of time lost.
FACT IS : I don't feel like I have time to lost in video game. I loved them but my time is precious and spending 5-10 minutes loading the same save again and again is a terrible waste and decrease of fun.
FACT IS : I don't have (or I wont take) times to do a new game crossing my fingers, hoping to have a better reroll this time in all the game...

So I understand people who love the thrill of the roll-dice. At least, I get it.
But I think this people should also understand and get MY point of view.

And this is why I think Larian should add a button "infinite re-roll" for the gamers like me (and I know, I'm not alone).
So the players who want to live in one roll-dice, keep living with one roll-dice, and the players, like me, who want to live "fully" control and choose the story they live, could reroll (I even think I could find funny to see how many times I have to roll to win a persuasion test at 3 !).

I call it a compromise.

Sadly I have the feeling it's something hard to accept for Larian (and even some people here)...

Again, I respect the people who like the thrill of the roll (it's not like I didn't like it at all but that's not the point here).

I would like for Larian to do the same with the people who prefer to play the adventure they are looking for.
Just put an infinity'rerool button and EVERYBODY would be happy (except for those who wants to impose their point of view).